Maintainer
Maintained by Dick Schoeller.
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These scores have been gathered to provide a repertoire for Shpilkes, The Temple Aliyah Klezmer Band. The arrangement is approximately alphabetical. Since I haven't always transliterated consistently, there may be some anomolies.
I've also been using Pete Sokolow's Guide to Klezmer Arranging and Orchestration as a tool to figure out what ought to work in the arrangements. If you see anything that looks insane, let me know. I'm still a "Grine Kusine".
Clarinet, violin, trumpet and alto sax all should be considered lead instruments. As such, their individual parts will generally include a melody line. I have, in many cases, also included either a tenor or baritone line as an alternative. These are usually derived from the tenor sax and trombone parts.
If you don't see a part for your instrument, look around. There may be some other instrument of similar range and style you can borrow. Flute can easily take a violin part, perhaps playing up an octave. Soprano sax can take a clarinet part. Or ask me to provide a transposition. Bumping that B♭ clarinet part to C or E♭ is a piece cake. So is bumping that B♭ tenor sax part to C and bass clef.
Trombone is generally a counter melody. In some cases, the trombone and the tenor saxophone are playing the same part. In a small number the trombone part is more like the bass part. If the trombone is missing choose from what is there.
The piano and accordion parts for the Kammen songs are pretty good. For other pieces they vary. Some of them are pretty abysmal. If you look at the piano part and it is bad, do two things. First send me mail and see if I can do something about it. Second go to the leadsheet pending my response.
Added 3 songs that we have been playing from hand-written lead sheets.
Moved all of the sources into GitHub and enabled automatic building on submission.
OK, I haven't updated the news or the front page in quite a while. Here is what came in during the last few months. The following songs are present in lead sheet form, transposed for various instruments. No bass lines or harmony parts for any of them.
Rumenye, Rumenye (in G) is a transposition into G that is otherwise identical to the original arrangement.
Papirosn is present but not really filled in. Coming soon to fruition.
Added Oy Tate.
There have been some updates to much of the music in order to make it more readable and/or singable. It is worth poking around to get the latest versions of everything.
Khanukah, Oy Khanukah was recently added.
I recently upgraded to the latest version of Lilypond. This resulted in a significant change in the layouts of some of the music. I have now finished cleaning up all of the problems caused by that change. Anything you download now should have a reasonable distribution across pages.
I just added Ikh Bin a Kleyner Dreydl. I hope to have more Hanukah songs up soon.
I just added some of the songs for performing at Beth Elohim for Simchat Torah. I'm trying to get the rest of them in.
The recording provided is a medley of 2 different freylekhs, Sid's Freylekhs and this one. You have to listen out to the second half to get this melody.
This is a medley of Itsikel, Kolemeyke (K. 1-21) and Sid's Freylekhs.
You must listen to the MP3 to get the playing approach that is appropriate here. You can listen to the MIDI to pick up on this specific arrangement. A key source that I used to get started on this was found at www.musicstudents.com.
Jerry is still interested in this piece. I've rearranged things so that the trumpet is carrying melody. One thing that I can readily do is to provide in B♭ and C scores with the melody, harmonies and counter together. In the mean time, it is what it is.
This piece is one that Jerry liked from The Compleat Klezmer by Henry Sapoznik. It is a Roumanian style hora, not an Israeli style. It is in 3/8 and the beats are on 1 and 3.
The harmony parts are a 3rd or 4th below the melody and a 5th or 6th below the melody. Trombone and flute are currently scored to play a counter. At Rich's suggestion most of the glissandos have been removed from the trombone part.
I do not have a recording of this, so you will have to use the MIDI.
The Compleat Klezmer attributes this to Abe Schwartz.
This is a classic Yiddish Khanukah favorite. This arrangement is strongly influenced by a MIDI by Jonathan Lehrer.
This is an original composition by Shpilkes's own Arnie Harris. Arnie and Barb are channelling Peter, Paul and Mary on the recording.
The alto sax part was based on the the trombone part. However, I got a copy of the B♭ version of the book and it had distinct alto and tenor sax parts.
The trombone glissandos now reflect what is in the book. The clarinet and flute have high melody parts. The violin and trumpet have low versions of the melody. The trumpet can play the tenor (or a transposition of the alto) instead of being heavy on the melody. The piano is just the melody and the octaves of the bass line, sorry! I hope to get to it soon.
This is still in progress. The freylekhs part was pulled from Klezmer Band Folio, Yale Klezmer Band and thus started as a pretty complete orchestration. The hora part is from The Compleat Klezmer and thus started as a lead sheet. I am still expanding the orchestration in that part.
This is a very exciting bulgar. I have heard a number of variations. What I have presented an arrangement from The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band.
The book has an alto sax part but no tenor sax part. I have constructed the tenor part by using liberal quotes from the alto part and from the violin part.
The violin part is NOT a melody part! The violin part is most definitely a harmony part. In the violin score, the melody is a C transposition of the clarinet part. The primary violin part in the book is the second part in this score.
Metropolitan Klezmer has a recording flute, bass and hand drums. This arrangement is so spare because that is the direction I am taking our performance. However, I doubt that we will try to come with a ney flute.
I'm making some progress on this. There is more to come. I finally found an arrangement to emulate and expand on.
This style is also known as a Pas D'Espagnol, a Russian Spanish Waltz.
Despite being titled as just a hora, this is a medley of a Romanian hora and a bulgar. The combination of starting slow and then kicking up the pace works particularly well.
This is a medley of a Roumanian hora and a bulgar. The combination of starting slow and then kicking up the pace works particularly well.
The A and C parts of this are the same as the A and B parts of No. 29 Russian Sher No. III in Kammen International Dance Folio, No. 1. I haven't transcribed that yet. The B part has this great circus feel to it.
This is the same as the Russische Sher, 2A in Mel Bay's Klezmer Collection by Stacy Phillips.
This is a medley of Russishe Sher, No. 28, Russishe Sher II and No. 27, Russishe Sher I.
This the same song as No. 1 Frailach in Kammen International Dance Folio, No. 1. The arrangement is very different. It arrangement is basically the same as the December (2002?) performance. The only real change is that I've added a drum part. The MIDI will be useful in understanding the drum rhythms.
Note that in the individual reed parts I have a melody, accompaniment and counter melody. The counter melody is the basis of the alto sax and trombone parts. The midi that I am including here has the clarinet playing melody on the first pass and accompaniment on the second. The trumpet reverses that.
I snagged a MIDI (by Michael Greenspan) from the net that provided a lot of good ideas for how to get our arrangement.
We have been using this melody for Shiru laHashem (Psalm 96) in our Kabbalat Shabbat service. I believe it is a Shlomo Carlebach melody.
This freylekhs is in the A and B sections the same as Shtiler Bulgar. The C section is a little different. The melody was made into the swing standard, "As the Angels Sing".
This is a nice freylekhs with an interesting bass vamp. We actually play it a bit slower than in the recordings.
The Klezmer Plus! recording provided is a medley of 2 different freylekhs, Sid's Freylekhs and Freylekhs in D minor.
This is a nice klezmerized tango composed by Reiner Oberbeck. You can find the original of this as well as other compositions and arrangements at his web site. Note, that because of the interplay of the instruments, this is arranged with very specific parts for clarinet, violin and accordion. We can only do this if we have a piano.
This is a moderate speed Chasidic nigun. The piano for the introduction is pretty explicit. You can't just bang chords on that. If there is no piano, start with the bass pickup before A.
Arrangement for flute with guitar and bass accompaniment. Violin may be added later. Currently that file is empty.
It is alternatively listed as a Hopak or Kosatski in the Russian section of the table of contents. According to Kammen it can also be played as a Greek dance.